Tales about dating again at forty, relationships, writing, motherhood, and other horrific, but possibly rewarding adventures.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

The Bigger Meaning

A few weeks ago friends and contacts were forced to actually pick up the phone rather than email me. “You’re emails are bouncing back,” they said accusingly. As if I was intentionally trying to make their life more difficult.

I wasn’t too concerned about this phenomenon, figuring people could still call me or do something really crazy such as stop by my house. Plus, I was receiving some emails so I figured if they tried again, maybe they would be successful. My friends were not as nonchalant about this (what they perceived to be) conundrum.
“Have you called clearwire?” Willow, who happens to work in technology, asked.
“No, I figure it will all sort itself out after Mercury retrograde,” I answered. Now, I know that makes me sound incredibly woo-woo, which I am, but I am even more of a luddite. If talking about Mercury retrograde allows me to avoid talking to a tech support person, I’ll be the first to start chanting and looking at the stars.

Willow, who is also woo-woo, but even more left-brained asked, “When is the last time you cleaned out your inbox?”
“I don’t know. I try to delete messages as I go.”
“So, that means never,” she laughed. “That’s the problem, you’re inbox is too full.”
“It’s not the planets?”
“No, it’s your two thousand plus emails clogging things up.”
She was right and by deleting a few hundred of those pesky emails, things started flowing again. Once again, being woo-woo made me think this was a metaphor for my life. I told my friends, “I have too much stuff that I don’t need. People and things are cluttering up my life so the good things can’t come in.” They either rolled their eyes at me or nodded “sure,” but it didn’t matter I was on to something. Five bags and a few phone calls later I had rid myself of clothes that no longer fit and relationships that were draining me. The clothes were dropped off at Value Village and the people were told I needed a break from their issues so I could focus on my own life.

Sure enough, my writing flowed again after a summer hiatus and I was asked to speak at two events and to be interviewed on the radio. Two days before the radio interview, I attempted to update my credit card information for my website auto payment. When I hit “cancel” I assumed it was for the credit card, but instead it was for my web account. Within a second, my entire website disappeared. The thing that took me months to create. The thing that announced my book, classes, workshops, mentoring services, and in general who I am. The thing I knew the radio announcer was going to recite at least a half dozen times. The thing that proved to the world that I existed. It was all gone; wiped out of existence by a mere click of the mouse. I tried to call tech support, but seeing as it was Labor Day weekend, no one was around. And since I no longer existed, I no longer had the special 24-hour lines available to me.

“I know it means something,” I told Willow. As she rattled off about databases, snapshots, and other terms I didn’t understand, I thought about the meaning of my mistake. The obvious one being that multi-tasking leads to screw ups. I was downloading music, eating, writing and updating my credit card all at the same time. But I knew it was more than that. I just didn’t know what the larger message was.

The week progressed with the interview, which included over twenty references to my now defunct website, an eventual call from tech support stating, “if you had called us right away we could have done something, but now it’s too late,” and the slow, but steady recreation of my existence.

On the eve of my talk to aspiring and accomplished writers on Whidbey Island, I got the big “ah-ha.” I had been in a funk about my career, seeing as every August most of my work comes to a stand still and although I remind myself of this fact in July, I still freak out in August. This August played out much the same, with me frantically scanning the want ads only to become more depressed because I’ve been a self-employed writer for ten years, which means I am unemployable.

The talk I was about to give was on how to stay inspired in tough times, so I was trying to muster up as much enthusiasm as I could. Be recreating my website and finding all of the testimonials people had written for me and listing all of the talks and readings I had done, I was able to remember my successes rather than dwell on the quagmire that is August.
I printed out my handouts and crawled into bed with a new confidence. Not only in my career, but also in the fact that my absent mindedness led to something positive. At least, that’s what I choose to believe.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..